


especially for tender ones like us

by viverella



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Getting Back Together, Haikyuu Angst Week 2020, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Post-Break Up, Post-Time Skip, reconnecting, right person wrong time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27422665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viverella/pseuds/viverella
Summary: The worst part of it all, Tooru thinks to himself sometimes, is that even as they fought and kicked and screamed and tore each other to shreds, it was never that Tooru stopped loving Iwaizumi any less. The worst part of it all, he thinks, is that loving Iwaizumi turned out to not be enough.(OR: on finding the right person at the wrong time and learning how to pick up the pieces)
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 26
Kudos: 147
Collections: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020





	especially for tender ones like us

**Author's Note:**

> happy hq angst week! I actually started writing this forever ago around the time the manga ended bc apparently the only way I knew how to cope with that was to write copious amounts of angst, but for whatever reason, I've been dragging my feet on finishing it. enter angst week day 6 prompt: "right person, wrong time," which is no lie how I'd been thinking about this fic since I started writing it, so a few weeks ago, I finally committed myself to finishing this in time to post today. needless to say, manga spoilers abound, though I'm sure I'm taking some liberties with things. 
> 
> as a side note: I spent a rly long time waffling back and forth on where to make iwa-chan go to college and as a native californian I lowkey adore the idea of him going to uc irvine BUT there was something kind of poetic about JST being _exactly_ 12 hours ahead of san juan, argentina, so for the purposes of this fic, we’re assuming iwa-chan went to college in japan and then moved out to california after graduating. and also (this is probably way more detail than anyone ever wants from me but w/e) as far as I know, california doesn't have any professional volleyball teams/wouldn't have at the point in time when iwaizumi would've been here so we're going with utsui-san coaching uci volleyball instead ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> please enjoy!! 
> 
> title borrowed from the poem quoted in part below.

_I think I get so scared because I’m greedy — I want to hold onto everything, the world wants to take it away. What the fuck. The number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it._

—Mikko Harvey

  
  


As Tooru touches down at the Sendai International Airport during the off-season in late June and lets the familiar yet not-so-familiar buzz of the place and its people and its language fill his ears, he thinks to himself that he’d probably feel more relieved to be back if he didn’t feel quite so guilty for being away for so long. He supposes that he could always blame his extended absence on the fact that it takes the better part of two days just for him to make his way home to a place that hasn’t really been home to him in something like five years, and he says as much, sometimes, when his sister pesters him about coming back more often because their parents keep asking after him. He knows that she doesn’t always believe him, doesn’t always buy that that’s the only thing holding him back, but as long as he remembers to call home at least once a week, she doesn’t press him on it too much, usually. 

Tooru weaves his way through the crowded airport and the long customs and immigration line feeling odd and spacey around his eyes, his phone waking up in his pocket, chiming with missed messages and notifications. His team’s group text blowing up because one of the guys just proposed to his girlfriend. His parents asking what he’d like for dinner when he arrives. A slew of headlines updating him on local news, namedropping old places he remembers, new places he doesn’t. He scrolls his way through his messages to find his sister to tell her that he’ll be out in just a moment, because Miyu has this thing about timing her pick-ups just right, never one to like being kept waiting for too long. He’s just typing a quick text out telling her he’ll be out in a minute when his phone buzzes, and a series of new messages from her come flooding in. If Tooru had more time to read and process what she’s sent him, if maybe the messages had come through just a minute or two faster, he might’ve frozen and seriously considered turning back, never mind that he’s only just gotten his feet back on solid ground after being in the air for so long. But as it is, Tooru’s barely gotten through her pleas of _please don’t hate me for this, but there was no one else to ask_ when life gets to him first. 

“Hey,” comes a familiar yet not-so-familiar voice, and Tooru snaps his head up, heart leaping to his throat. 

Iwaizumi smiles at him, hands jammed into his jacket pockets, shoulders a little slouched against the backlight of sunlight streaming through the big glass windows behind him. Tooru hasn’t seen Iwaizumi in years, and he’d almost forgotten, just a little, how achingly beautiful Iwaizumi can be, his sharp features softened by the warm sun, and Tooru momentarily forgets how to breathe.  
  


* * *

  
The thing is, Tooru thinks to himself in his more generous moments, they were probably just too young, at the end of the day. Tooru thinks back on what life was like, just a handful of years ago, and he remembers being so desperately in love that he thought he could do anything. He thinks back on what life was like, and he remembers, too, being eighteen and terrified and feeling like he was going to drown in a world that seemed just too big. Twelve hours of time difference between _here_ and _there_ hadn’t sounded like such a big thing in the beginning—what’s twelve hours, after all, against an entire lifetime of shared history? Twelve hours hadn’t sounded like such a big deal until he faced the reality of it, until he woke up one day and realized that for the first time in his life, they were completely out of sync, one waking as the other slept, one beginning as the other ended, _good morning_ and _goodnight_ all wrapped up into one. And then, he couldn’t un-feel it, couldn’t make it seem small again, and as the days turned into weeks turned into months, all he could feel was this horrible, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that things were spiraling out of control, like they were two planets being pulled out of orbit. 

The whole thing imploding was probably inevitable, Tooru tries to tell himself in his more generous moments. It was probably no one’s fault. Everyone says that long-distance relationships never work, after all. And with a whole ocean between them, whole hemispheres apart, who could blame them for failing? It’s probably an outcome as natural and expected as the Earth turning, as the slight shifts in the surface of the planet. Tooru remembers, vaguely, learning in high school about seismic activity and deep rifts that carve jagged cracks along the ocean floor between Japan and the Americas. He thinks to himself sometimes, bitterly, that a constructive boundary is a deceptive thing to call two tectonic plates that are doomed to drift ever further away from one another.  
  


* * *

  
There’s a long moment where it feels like the whole world screeches to a halt before it launches back into chaotic motion, overwhelming and unrelenting. There’s a moment where Tooru just stares, feeling like his ears are stuffed with cotton, a little because it’s been more than four years since the last time he saw Iwaizumi, and a lot because the last time Tooru spoke to him, it was to the tune of the kind of fight that Tooru’s always thought you can’t come back from, the kind of fight that in the aftermath of it, Tooru had thought to himself that he’d probably never see Iwaizumi again and that’d probably be justified, no matter how much it hurt to even think about. But the Iwaizumi standing in front of him doesn’t look bitter or angry, doesn’t look like he thinks resentfully of that year after high school and trying to make an impossible situation work only for it to blow up spectacularly in both of their faces. Iwaizumi smiles at him, and it’s not that soft, secret smile that Tooru grew up knowing was reserved for him and him alone, but it’s still warm and kind, and Tooru almost worries that he might cry. 

“Um,” Tooru says after a moment has passed.

Iwaizumi lets out a soft breath and shakes his head. “You didn’t get Miyu-san’s texts?” he says, and the way he says it makes it sound like it’s not really a question that needs to be asked, and Tooru wonders if it’s possible that Iwaizumi could still be that good at reading him after all this time or if the shock is really that evident on his face. 

“No,” Tooru says too quickly, tripping over his words, his ribs feeling a size too small. “I mean, I did, I was just, um—” 

He gestures to his phone, and then winces a little at how awkward and clumsy his hands feel as he moves them, how unwieldy his tongue is in his mouth. He takes a breath to steady himself and tries again.

“Takeru’s sick?” he asks, and that’s not really a question either, because his sister’s texts said as much, but he finds that he doesn’t know how else to fill the space. 

“Food poisoning, probably,” Iwaizumi says and shrugs. “She wanted to take him to the doctor just to be safe. You know how she is.”

Iwaizumi talks like it’s not difficult for him, like he doesn’t feel how the air around them has suddenly gone thin, like he doesn’t feel how the pull of gravity has been steadily increasing since they spotted one another. 

“Right,” Tooru says, and it feels like a monumental task. 

Iwaizumi lets out something that might be a sigh. “Anyways, your parents were busy, and I wasn’t, so,” he says and shrugs again. There’s a beat, like he’s waiting for Tooru to say something, and when Tooru doesn’t, he reaches out to take Tooru’s duffel bag from him, saying, “Here, let me help.”

If things had gone differently, this is where Tooru would probably make a joke, something about being so lucky to have big, strong Iwa-chan to help his poor, tired soul, and Tooru wants to, so badly, the sentiment right on the tip of his tongue, the instinct still primed after so much time spent apart. He can picture the way Iwaizumi’s nose would scrunch up and his eyebrows would draw together in a perfect picture of annoyance even as his eyes remained bright and amused. If things had gone differently, Tooru would’ve greeted Iwaizumi with arms thrown around him, complaining about jetlag and begging to be carried, and Iwaizumi would roll his eyes at him, but he’d probably still end up laughing anyways. 

Iwaizumi now is perfectly nice, perfectly cordial after all the mud they’d slung at each other back when they were eighteen, nineteen, as he gestures vaguely and says, _car’s over here_ and _sorry about the mess_ and _you must be tired, huh?_ He’s even friendly, really, as he drives them away from the crowded airport and makes small talk with Tooru, as he cranks up the music and rolls the window down to reach his free hand out to ride the wind. He’s living in America these days, he says. He ended up interning with Utsui-san after all, he says. He’s just home for a handful of weeks to see his family, he says, something about Utsui-san coaching at a university out in California and American schools’ protracted summer breaks. Each new sliver of information sits heavily in Tooru’s stomach like he’s swallowing stones, because he keeps thinking that it shouldn’t be news to him, that maybe if he’d done things a little differently, a little better, he’d have gotten to celebrate all those accomplishments and momentous occasions with Iwaizumi instead of hearing it as an afterthought, months, maybe years after the fact. 

“Thank you,” Tooru says when Iwaizumi pulls up to a stop in front of Tooru’s house, hating himself for sounding so formal. There were so many little things they never had to thank each other for before, he remembers, and then quickly squashes the thought. “For picking me up, I mean.”

Iwaizumi goes to help Tooru get his bags out of the trunk of the car. “Well, I wasn’t about to leave you stranded at the airport,” he says. He smiles a little at Tooru, a crooked quirk of his mouth, and it makes Tooru’s insides twist uncomfortably. “I’m not _that_ much of an asshole.”

Tooru feels his breath catch in his throat, suddenly sharp and jagged, remembering the feeling of that word in his mouth, but he forces out a laugh anyway, forces himself to smile before waving and turning away to gather up his things and disappear inside his house, maybe forever, if he had his way. 

“Hey.”

Tooru turns again at the sound of Iwaizumi’s voice, a little startled by the sudden softness in it. Iwaizumi’s gotten back into his car, but he’s rolled down the passenger-side window, and Tooru can just meet his eyes as he ducks his head a little to look out. There’s a pause, like Iwaizumi’s trying to decide something, and Tooru finds himself holding his breath.

“It was nice seeing you again,” Iwaizumi says finally, quietly. 

The sentiment is kind, but the words hit Tooru like a knife to the chest. Still, he tries for a smile. 

“Yeah,” he says, and if his smile looks at all fake, at least Iwaizumi doesn’t call him out on it.  
  


* * *

  
Tooru tries to remember, sometimes, what the last thing he said to Iwaizumi was, before, and finds that he can’t quite get it right. He can feel the outline of the words on the roof of his mouth, turns them over and over as if he can force them to take shape, but it remains just out of reach, just beyond where the edge of his horizon is, like so many other things have been. What he does remember is the feeling of white-hot anger in the pit of his stomach and the acrid taste of stupid, spiteful things said in the heat of the moment, things he probably didn’t mean, things he can’t even remember enough to take back. 

They fought a lot, back then. In the almost-year it took them to go from high school graduation to a magnitude seven earthquake, they probably fought more than just talked, probably fought more than they had in their entire lives leading up to that point. Tooru doesn’t even remember, exactly, what they fought about, only that it felt important at the time, only that as the weeks and months dragged on, the sight of Iwaizumi’s name lighting up his phone screen made him feel like his heart was being encased in ice instead of elated like it used to. 

_You don’t understand_ , became something of a common refrain, the words falling from Tooru’s mouth often quicker than he could think, so often that they became the unfortunate reality that Tooru had found himself occupying. It was a crutch, he now realizes, for the way he couldn’t figure out how to put the anxious desperation trying to claw its way out of his chest into words. It wasn’t fair, he now realizes, too. 

Tooru remembers, once, coming back to his apartment from a long run, trying find a release valve for all the anger and frustration from a morning spent fighting over nothing, and thinking to himself that he didn’t even know why they started fighting in the first place. He’d been half an hour to a Skype date, perhaps. Or he’d forgotten to wait so they could watch the new episode of a show they both liked together. Or maybe he’d just been cranky because it’d been early and neither of them had been very good at not taking things too personally. Things that had always felt so small—that could always be smoothed over by soft hands and gentle kisses pressed into the sharp curve of Iwaizumi’s cheekbones, the ridge of his brow, the palms of his hands—suddenly seemed so big, so significant, and Tooru had found himself at a loss. 

He’d stood in the middle of his apartment, legs sore and still catching his breath from his run, and he’d said _I’m sorry_ out into the quiet of the room and realized that it wasn’t something he’d ever really learned how to do. He’d apologized to Iwaizumi a million times a million different ways over a literal lifetime spent together, put band-aids on all his scrapes, taped up all his jammed fingers, wrapped himself all around Iwaizumi until he could make him smile again, but it was always in the doing of it. It was like he had to learn a new language all of a sudden after eighteen years spent making himself fluent in all things Iwaizumi, and for the first time in his life, he hadn’t been sure if he could do it.  
  


* * *

  
“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Miyu says to Tooru when he meets up with her a few days later. 

Takeru’s middle school is competing in a regional volleyball tournament downtown in the city gymnasium that Tooru has so many memories of, and Takeru’s back up and full of energy and eager to play after his recent bout with food poisoning following a few days’ rest. Tooru, for his part, has at least partially succeeding at convincing his body that it’s three in the afternoon, not three in the morning, thanks to sleeping for almost the entirety of his first full day back in Miyagi and several cups of coffee before heading out today, and he’s doing his best to be a good sport about it all, if only because Takeru looks so excited as he waves up at Tooru from the court as his team runs through warm-ups. Tooru smiles, waves back, and tries to stifle a yawn. He wonders, idly, if his sister would be more forgiving about how he never really comes home anymore if he claimed that the jetlag alone is enough to do him in for good. 

“I didn’t mean to ambush you or anything,” Miyu continues as he leans his elbows on the railing of the stands next to her. She smiles, apologetic. “Hajime was the only person I could think of to call.”

Tooru shrugs and looks down at the court below, trying not to think too much about the way each tiny kindness from Iwaizumi that day felt like a sharp jab to the gut. Death by a thousand cuts, Tooru thinks, and then shakes his head at himself for being so dramatic. 

“It’s, you know—I get it,” Tooru says, because the rational part of him does, really, no matter how much his more childish instincts want him to stamp his feet and kick up a fuss ( _How dare you make me face my ex-boyfriend like an adult! How dare you make me face the consequences of my actions!_ ). He offers what he hopes is a playful smile and says, “I’m a big boy now, you know. I know how to handle myself.”

Miyu laughs softly. “Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it,” she says. Her tone is light, but Tooru thinks to himself that she’s one of the only people in the world who’s never let him get away with anything. She tips her head to the side so she can give Tooru that famous sidelong look of hers, one eyebrow arched just so, mouth turned into a thoughtful frown. “And you’re okay?”

Tooru lets out a long breath. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, and it’s mostly the truth, really, for however much his ribs ache to think about it. “It was all fine. We didn’t fight. He was nice.”

Iwaizumi’s easy smile from the other day flashes through Tooru’s mind and he squeezes his eyes shut. He listens to the familiar, rhythmic thump of volleyballs hitting the floor and tries to even out his breathing.

“You know, I think I almost would’ve preferred it if he’d yelled at me or something,” Tooru says after a long moment, blinking his eyes open and staring at his hands. There’s a small burn most of the way to healing along the knuckles of his right hand from when the sweet old woman who lives across the hall from him tried to teach him how to bake bread before he set out for Japan. It was only a small handful of days ago, but for whatever reason, it feels like it’s been a lifetime since then. Tooru shakes his head and smiles a little ruefully at his sister, “That’s fucked up, right?”

Miyu hums thoughtfully and shrugs, turning to look back down at the court below. It’s Takeru’s turn to serve and she claps and cheers.

“I don’t know, maybe,” she says quietly, resting her fingers on the railing in front of them. “I kind of get it, though.”

Tooru turns so that he can look at her properly. His whole life, people have always told him that he and his sister look so alike, that their mannerisms are so similar despite the many years between them, but Tooru’s always known that he could never match up to her in this. She’s always been a softer person than he is, kinder, more giving, and he wonders if it’s maybe why all the things in her life lined up so perfectly where his fell apart. 

“When someone’s mad at you,” Miyu says slowly, “I think it means that they still care enough, you know, to spend the energy doing that. It’s a lot of work, being mad, _staying_ mad at someone. You don’t do that for people you don’t care about. And I think that that’s maybe even worse than someone you love being angry with you—just indifference.”

Tooru lets out a long breath in a _whoosh_ , feeling a little like all the air is being sucked out of his lungs. He wonders, sometimes, how it’s possible that it’s been so many years, and he still hasn’t quite figured out how to let go, except that he knows he’s always been the type of person to hold on too tightly, to hang onto grudges even after they’ve lost their use. He can feel her watching him, sharp eyes waiting to pick apart any reaction he makes, and he makes himself laugh, even though he can hear how pained it sounds.

“You’re the worst at cheering people up,” he grumbles and slouches to fold his arms over the railing and rest his chin on top of them. 

He only sort of means it, but Miyu smiles at him anyways, reaching out to ruffle his hair fondly. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, was that what I was supposed to be doing?” she says, needling and teasing, but not unkind. She bumps his shoulder with hers. “I’ll buy you ice cream after this. Make it all better.”

It’s a lie and they both know it, but Tooru smiles, feeling a sudden rush of affection for her. She’s the only person in the world other than Tooru and Iwaizumi who knows what that year after high school was like, spent many long days talking Tooru down as he watched his world fall apart right in front of him. Even his parents don’t know, _especially_ his parents don’t know what happened that year except that it ended up in both of them getting their hearts broken, the story of a breakup wrapped conveniently around the excuse of distance. Tooru knows their families are still close, hears about so many inconsequential things through the grapevine—Auntie’s thinking about retiring soon, their family dog, Kuma, just turned ten, they’re thinking about repainting the house but the unexpectedly rainy spring has made it difficult—and he wonders, sometimes, what his mother would think if she knew about the kinds of things they said to each other that year. He wonders why he’s still so reluctant to talk about it, like the saying of it is what makes it real.

Tooru takes a deep breath and straightens up again, cheering with his sister as Takeru’s team takes the first set. He’s been fine for four years now, he thinks to himself. He can make himself be fine again.  
  


* * *

  
The worst part of it all, Tooru thinks to himself sometimes, is that even as they fought and kicked and screamed and tore each other to shreds, it was never that Tooru stopped loving Iwaizumi any less. The worst part of it all, he thinks, is that loving Iwaizumi turned out to not be enough. Tooru almost can’t remember a time when he didn’t love Iwaizumi, one way or another, and there had been a time when he’d thought that the feeling he held close to his heart meant that nothing could ever break him. It had always felt as much a part of him as breathing, easy like the laughter Iwaizumi always drew out of him, warm like Iwaizumi’s hand on the small of his back, always, even in the winter. Tooru had never imagined that he’d ever have to get used to an absence of him.

Tooru was thirteen when he was able to put a name to the feeling filing his chest, the way the whole world seemed to glow when Iwaizumi smiled that soft, sweet smile, the unmistakable impulse to reach out, to touch, tugging at Iwaizumi’s sleeve or leaning into his side or tucking his chin over Iwaizumi’s shoulder. Tooru was sixteen when he realized that come hell or high water, this feeling was here to stay, that he didn’t know how to love except with everything he had, that for better or for worse this was for keeps. He was eighteen when he thought for the first time that maybe forever was finally within reach, nineteen when he learned that there exist in the world still more tests he’s doomed to fail. 

In the end, Tooru supposes he was right about one thing. The love is still there, lingering in his peripheral vision, like an ache in a phantom limb that he just can’t shake, a scar that refuses to fade. Sometimes, Tooru can ignore it, can hide behind the way he’s practiced at all the right smiles and gestures like he practices serving. Sometimes, Tooru almost believes it, almost loses himself to the illusion, like he really can be that carefree guy who flirts with a pretty girl at a bar without thinking to himself that this isn’t how it was supposed to be. But every now and again, in the odd, liminal spaces between waking and sleeping, late at night, early in the morning, Tooru feels the weight of it so acutely that for a moment, he can’t breathe. He got to keep the love but lost the boy, got to keep this feeling without rhyme or reason even as the distance between them stretched and warped and Iwaizumi withdrew from him more and more each day. 

At eighteen, Tooru had never known what life would be like without Iwaizumi, had never considered it possible that there would be an _after_. At twenty-three, he knows that nothing in the world is that easy.  
  


* * *

  
When Tooru arrives home from watching Takeru’s match and ice cream and laughing with his sister until the world started to feel a little lighter again, he comes home to his mother humming to herself in a kitchen overflowing with produce. She smiles at him when he calls out ( _I’m home_ feels clumsy in his mouth from disuse, hollow in a home that’s no longer really his home), and he goes to drop a light kiss on the top of her head.

“You buy the whole grocery store or something?” Tooru asks, laughing. Various vegetables stare at him in a colorful medley from the countertop. 

His mother looks at him for a moment, eyebrows drawn together. “Oh, did I not tell you? I’m so sorry, honey, it must’ve slipped my mind,” she says, and her voice is easy, but something in it tells Tooru to brace himself. “I invited Hajime-kun and his parents over for dinner. It’s been a while since both of you boys have been home.”

A thousand things fly through Tooru’s head in the span of an instant—

( _How could something like that slip your mind?_ )

( _How could you not ask me if it was okay first? What if all we had to look forward to is another gut-wrenching screaming match?_ )

( _Why would you do this? Why, why, why?_ )

—but she doesn’t know how it was during that year after high school, couldn’t possibly know, and Tooru has never been ready to tell her any of that, so all he ends up saying is, “Oh.”

His mother arches an eyebrow at him anyways. “‘Oh’?” she says pointedly. 

There are times, Tooru thinks, that he kind of hates that he got his perceptiveness from her. He can tell that she wants to pry, wants to ask him what happened, tease out all those stories Tooru’s steadfastly refused to tell her, but Tooru smiles before she can get started, trying to put on a face that’s as genuine as possible to usher her away from the aching thing in his chest. 

“It’s fine, mama,” Tooru says warmly and almost believes it himself. “We broke up ages ago. I’ll be fine. It was nice of you to invite them over.”

His mother hums thoughtfully and looks at him for a long moment before her expression softens into something fond and maybe a little sad. 

“You’re a good kid, Tooru,” she says softly, reaching out to pat him gently on the cheek. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

The words strike Tooru oddly in his chest, and as she turns away to continue preparing dinner, he wonders if this is what coming home will be like from now on, all these little reminders of things he’s outgrown but not outrun, all these ghosts still lingering in the corners of his eyes. He thinks about the last time he’d come home, two years ago for Christmas, remembers feeling so out of place that he’d almost run off a few days early, remembers the guilty, uneasy relief he’d felt when he’d arrived back in his own apartment, half a world away. Sometimes he wonders when it started, when this place he’d spent nearly his whole life in started to feel so foreign to him, and tries to ignore that he knows home started to lose its luster around the same time Tooru got out of the habit of saying _we_.  
  


* * *

  
When Iwaizumi and his parents arrive an hour later, it’s to the usual fanfare of parents cooing over them, commenting on how grown up they look now, complaining about how they never come home. Tooru laughs and smiles like he’s supposed to until his face hurts, trying not to pay too much attention to the fact that Iwaizumi hasn’t quite looked at him since he arrived, trying not to notice how it feels like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Iwaizumi offers to help Tooru’s mother cook, and he smiles that warm smile that Tooru hasn’t seen in years, that still hasn’t been directed at him in about as long, but Tooru’s mother waves him off and shoos the two of them out of the kitchen, like they’re still in high school and too rowdy and more liable to make mess than be much help at all. And that’s how Tooru finds himself in the exact situation he’s been doing his best to avoid for years and years, trying to sidestep the way the air feels thick in his lungs, the way it feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his own skin. Tooru curls up on the couch in the living room, knees pulled up to his chest, fidgeting fingers picking at imaginary bits of lint on his pants. Iwaizumi sits at the other end of the couch they’ve spent so many nights sprawled across, arguing over what movie to watch, and he’s only a handful of feet away now but the gulf between them has never felt more insurmountable. 

Iwaizumi sighs after a moment and leans an elbow on the backrest of the couch, propping his chin up on his hand, a lazy, familiar gesture that makes Tooru forget, just for a second, that this is no longer a place he can really claim Iwaizumi belongs. 

“How’s Argentina?” Iwaizumi asks after a beat, and he’s always been better at that than Tooru, at being brave, at taking a leap of faith into the unknown, and it makes Tooru feel like his throat is closing up. Iwaizumi smiles, friendly, nice, but only that. “Still like it there?”

Tooru summons up a smile that feels plasticky and uncomfortable on his face. “Yeah, of course,” he chirps, and then laughs, even though it’s not really what he feels like doing. And then he says, more to fill the space between them than anything else, “Still can’t get used to the fact that my birthday’s in the winter now, though.”

The corner of Iwaizumi’s mouth twitches and he lets out a breath that might’ve been a laugh back in high school. “After all that complaining about how hot it is around your birthday,” he says. “Didn’t you used to wish for cold weather?” 

There’s this slight, teasing lilt to Iwaizumi’s voice that Tooru wants to believe he isn’t just making up, so he smiles a little and leans into it, just so, wanting, needing to find the common ground between them again. 

“I was like seven when I said that,” Tooru says primly. “I’ve grown up since then, you know.”

Iwaizumi arches an eyebrow at him and murmurs, almost under his breath, “Really? Could’ve fooled me.”

It probably doesn’t mean anything. It’s probably just a knee-jerk reaction, a kind of habit so ingrained that it can’t be shaken even after years of disuse. But it makes Tooru freeze and his eyes go wide anyways, something about it striking a chord in a place buried deep beneath his ribs. 

Iwaizumi frowns at him. “What?” he asks, a vague thread of annoyance sneaking into his voice. “What’re you looking at me like that for? It’s creeping me out.”

This time, it pulls a startled laugh out of Tooru, spilling out from the base of his throat before he can stop it. He claps a hand over his mouth to hide the smile he finds on his face in its wake, this smile that’s maybe the realest thing he’s felt since arriving back in Japan, and finally this place feels a little like coming home.

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru says through his fingers, the old nickname slipping out, unbidden, before he has a chance to reel it back in. “That was kind of mean.”

A very particular shade of overwrought irritation falls over Iwaizumi’s face, a look so well-worn that Tooru can’t help bursting out laughing again. It comes flooding back to him all at once, how much he’s missed this, missed the way Iwaizumi would always pretend to be more annoyed with Tooru’s antics than he ever really was, missed that familiar scowl pressing a crease between his eyebrows even though he never, never said no when Tooru asked something of him and really meant it. It’s an odd sort of relief that fills his chest even as Iwaizumi goes to kick Tooru off the couch ( _I’ll show you mean_ ), relief that they can still find this, relief that he has more to look forward to than clipped politeness and socially appropriate warmth, even after everything they’ve said, everything they’ve done, everything Tooru wanted to say but didn’t. Tooru flails as he falls to the ground with a _thump_ and catches the smirking triumph on Iwaizumi’s face, and Tooru laughs and laughs and laughs, until his cheeks are sore and his stomach hurts. It’s a kind of laugh that’s been absent from Tooru’s life for longer than he cares to admit, the kind that starts in the belly and works its way up, the kind that makes tears gather at the corners of his eyes and his cheeks flush, that’s always been special, just a little bit. Tooru looks up to find Iwaizumi laughing too, the one that softens out the sharp planes of his face into something boyish and sweet, that resonates in Tooru’s ears long after it’s gone. It all feels satisfying and whole in a way that Tooru realizes he hasn’t been able to capture in a very long time. 

Tooru rests his arms up on the couch cushions as he settles back down, resting his chin atop folded arms, tilting his head to one side to peer up at Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi’s finally looking down at him with those warm, soft eyes that Tooru grew up falling in love with, and for the first time, Tooru wonders if it could really be this easy because for the first time in so, so long, Iwaizumi’s looking at him again like he might be worth the effort. The tension that’s been sitting squarely between his shoulders ever since he arrived in Miyagi has finally started to ease, and Tooru tries to remember everything he’s learned in the past few years about being a braver person.

“Hey, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says softly, his heart drumming a rapid staccato rhythm against his ribcage. 

“Hmm?” Iwaizumi hums, tipping his head to one side a little to mirror Tooru.

Tooru feels his breath like a rattle through his chest but he rolls his shoulders back and soldiers on. “Do you think,” Tooru says, and his voice comes out sounding smaller than he means for it to, “Do you think we could be friends again?”

For a moment, Tooru can’t read the expression on Iwaizumi’s face, can’t tell if he should be pleased or disappointed by the slight twitch of an eyebrow, the subtle downward curve of his mouth. Tooru’s reminded, suddenly, of when Iwaizumi would sometimes get all stony-faced and cold mid-argument during those months following high school, the way Tooru could just _see_ him shuttering himself off and couldn’t figure out how to get it to stop. Tooru’s gut twists uncomfortably just like the first time, because Tooru hadn’t ever imagined that there could be a version of Iwaizumi that was inscrutable to him. But then Iwaizumi’s expression shifts, just so, a slight easing around the eyes, and Tooru unclenches his fists, palms stinging where his nails have left behind crescent-shaped marks in his skin. Iwaizumi reaches out to nudge Tooru’s bangs out of his eyes. Another habit, Tooru thinks, the way Iwaizumi would badger Tooru about letting his hair get so annoyingly long, the way he’d push Tooru’s hair back like he was refusing to give Tooru anywhere to hide when it really mattered. Tooru keeps his hair shorter now, but Iwaizumi’s fingers run easily through it all the same. 

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says quietly after another moment, almost a whisper. “Yeah, okay.”

There’s a kind of ache running just under the surface of Iwaizumi’s voice, a kind of longing that Tooru thinks he probably knows well. He remembers how after they broke up how he kept forgetting that Iwaizumi wasn’t a part of his life anymore, remembers reaching out and making it halfway to his phone before realizing that Iwaizumi wouldn’t be at the other end of a text or a call again and again and again for weeks until he started to succeed at training himself out of it. Tooru had woken up one day and realized that he’d literally never known life without Iwaizumi, from the day he was born to the day he left home without looking back, had never imagined a version of the world where Iwaizumi wasn’t there waiting for him. Even if the world wasn’t going to let him love Iwaizumi in the way he wanted most, he’d always thought, at least, that he’d still be able to love Iwaizumi somehow. He’d always thought, in a way, that _that_ kind of love, the kind built in shared memories and comfortable silences and unshakeable faith, would be the kind that lasted. He’d wondered then if he’d ever be able to make the absence feel like a part of him the same way Iwaizumi always had been. He wonders now if Iwaizumi spent the last few years wondering the same thing. 

Tooru smiles, feeling warm all the way to his toes, and throws his arms around Iwaizumi’s waist before he can think better of it. Habit, he thinks, and wonders if Iwaizumi would buy it if he said it. 

“Aw, Iwa-chan,” Tooru teases, giddy with the permission to reinvent the private, secret language they both used to speak so well. “Were you lonely? Did you miss me?”

Tooru thinks that what he probably means to say is _**I** missed you, I did, every day_, but he still hasn’t gotten very good at saying the things that he means. 

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes and makes a half-hearted attempt to shove Tooru away from him. 

“Not for a second,” Iwaizumi says, and Tooru thinks (hopes) that maybe that still means _I missed you too_.  
  


* * *

  
A couple days later, when Tooru goes with Iwaizumi to meet up with Hanamaki and Matsukawa for drinks, there are a few moments when, if Tooru were to close his eyes and let himself pretend, he could almost imagine that nothing had happened, that when he opened his eyes again, he’d realize that it’d all been a dream, that he’d forget what it feels like to be hollowed out by your own hubris. The smiles come easier now, and the old patterns are all still there for them to fall back on, and Tooru thinks to himself that maybe he’s not crazy after all. Maybe there’s still something he can salvage here, some foundation that didn’t get burned down with the rest of their relationship all those years ago.

Yet all the same, just once or twice, Tooru notices a quiet half-beat where he’s almost waiting for some kind of teasing, needling comment from Iwaizumi that never comes, and all the same, Tooru looks up and catches out of the corner of his eye how the pretty bartender laughs and flirts with Iwaizumi, and all the same, as Tooru walks home with Iwaizumi from the train station that night, their shoulders carefully not bumping, he still feels a little like he’s holding his breath. But then Iwaizumi smiles at him as they part ways by Tooru’s house, the crooked quirk of his mouth and soft eyes he’s started to get back into the habit of wearing again, and Tooru thinks to himself that maybe tomorrow, he’ll get it right.  
  


* * *

  
He doesn’t, of course, because nothing he’s ever wanted has ever been that easy, but there comes a moment, maybe a week and a half into coming back home, where he starts to think that maybe he’s been thinking about it the wrong way the whole time. It’s a Thursday and it’s past midnight, and Tooru can hear the shrill whine of the cicadas outside and his father talking in his sleep down the hall and he closes his eyes and isn’t tired. He thinks about his apartment back in Argentina, his tiny army of plants that he made one of his teammates promise to check on—little cacti and succulents and one huge aloe vera that keeps outgrowing its pot, all drought-resistant and certified as unkillable even for someone like him. He thinks about sitting on the fire escape outside his bedroom window, bundled up against the winter chill with a thick sweater and a steaming cup of tea fogging up his glasses. He thinks about the sweet old woman across the hall who brings him fresh, homemade bread at least once a week, and the vendor down the street who always promises to have the ripest seasonal fruit, and the cat that lives in the first floor apartment of his building who always watches him coming and going on his daily runs with intent fascination. It’s midday in San Juan, and Tooru finds that, try as he might, he still can’t seem to quite convince his body that he’s really here, in Miyagi.

Tooru’s reaching over to his phone and bringing it up to his ear to call Iwaizumi before he even realizes it. It doesn’t fully click until it’s rung once, twice, three times that he probably shouldn’t be doing this, that Iwaizumi could be asleep, that Tooru probably hasn’t earned back all hours of the night calling privileges to talk about nothing at all. He briefly considers hanging up, but before he can do anything, the ringing stops, and Tooru hears a heavy sigh.

“What?” Iwaizumi says flatly. 

Tooru can hear music playing softly in the background, and he grabs one of his pillows and squeezes it to his chest. 

“Iwa-chan, is that any way to greet a friend?” Tooru says, trying to keep his tone light to offset the weight he feels in his chest. 

“Friends don’t call me in the middle of the night just to bother me,” Iwaizumi says, but there’s no bite to it. 

He sounds a little distracted, and Tooru wonders if he’s an unwelcome intrusion into something important. He closes his eyes and clutches the pillow a little tighter.

“What’re you doing?” Tooru asks, thinking to himself that this was probably a mistake, that he should just hang up now before he digs himself so deep into this hole that he can’t get out anymore, but Tooru supposes he’s never really known how to stop at anything halfway. 

“Reading,” Iwaizumi says, his voice a comforting rumble even through the tinny speaker of Tooru’s phone. 

“About what?” Tooru asks, more to hear Iwaizumi in his ear again than anything else. He rolls onto his side, leaving his phone pressed between his cheek and his bed. 

Tooru hears Iwaizumi draw in a breath, and for a moment, he thinks that maybe this is it, that this is where Iwaizumi will blow him off with some convenient excuse of needing to go to bed, needing to get up early in the morning, but then:

“It’s this book—it’s about trying to find the ending to a story. A friend recommended it to me.”

_A friend_ , Iwaizumi says, and Tooru wonders how many people have come and gone from Iwaizumi’s life in the years they’ve been apart, wonders if any of them turned out to be better at constancy than Tooru is. But Iwaizumi’s voice comes out a little softer, a little easier now, like when he’d talk Tooru down before big matches back in high school, and Tooru lets himself smile a little.

“Do they find it?” Tooru asks, a little quieter than he means. “The end of the story, I mean.”

Iwaizumi laughs, and Tooru feels his heart leap in his chest, hopeful and stupid. 

“I’m only halfway done,” Iwaizumi says. “How would I know?”

Tooru hums. “Well, it’d be a pretty lame ending if you got through the whole thing only for them to not find what they’re looking for,” he says.

Iwaizumi lets out a soft breath that’s maybe a half-laugh. “Not all stories have good endings, Oikawa,” he murmurs.

Tooru draws in a sharp breath, suddenly feeling very small. All at once, it doesn’t feel like they’re talking about a book anymore, and Tooru doesn’t know what to do with that, because they’ve never talked about it, the way _their_ story ended four years ago, because they never got the chance to. Tooru thinks about all the spiteful, petty things he’d said, things he didn’t even really mean at the time, much less now, and he wonders, not for the first time, why Iwaizumi is doing all this, why he’s decided to humor Tooru in this hopeless charade, playing at being friends until it starts to feel real again. Tooru looks at Iwaizumi sometimes only to catch him just looking away, an odd edge to the set of his mouth, the curve of his brow, and Tooru wonders if he’s the only one finding even a little bit of joy in getting his best friend back, however off-kilter this whole thing is. 

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru whispers into his phone, unable to really speak around the lump in his throat. 

And maybe Tooru means to apologize, though for what he can’t quite put his finger on, but then there’s a rustling noise from the other end of the phone that saves Tooru from having to figure out what the rest of his thought is, and Iwaizumi asks quietly, “Do you want me to read to you?”

This is how Iwaizumi has always been, Tooru remembers. For however tough and sharp he likes to act sometimes, Iwaizumi is one of the kindest people that Tooru has ever known. He’s straightforward and loyal and giving, and Tooru thinks that he’s probably always taken that a little too much for granted. He didn’t realize until after Iwaizumi had left his life just how rare people like Iwaizumi were, didn’t realize just how easily he twisted his whole life into knots without someone there to make him straighten it back out again. 

“Okay,” Tooru says, voice small. He tucks his knees up to his chest. 

Tooru hears Iwaizumi hum softly and a quiet shuffling sound as he gets settled again, and then after a pause, Iwaizumi starts to read. The book is in English, and his voice is low and soothing, an even cadence in Tooru’s ear as he lets his eyes fall shut. As he listens to Iwaizumi reading without really hearing what he’s saying, Tooru tries to remember if they’ve done this before, because it feels easy, suddenly, to find comfort through a phone line and Tooru can’t remember anything about that year they tried to make the distance work except that it was hard. Maybe this is something Tooru had to learn how to do, to let himself be calmed by something he can’t understand. Maybe he just never quite heard it before when Iwaizumi offered. 

Just before Tooru drifts off, he becomes vaguely aware of a significant silence, like someone’s holding their breath. And then, almost a whisper, so quiet Tooru thinks he maybe dreams it, he hears Iwaizumi says, “Goodnight, Oikawa.”

Tooru doesn’t have it in him to figure out if Iwaizumi sounds relieved or sad.  
  


* * *

  
In his dream, Tooru is back at Seijoh. The familiar shiny, wood floors gleam up at him and sweat sticks to the back of his neck, and there’s a feeling high in his chest like he could win anything. The gym is empty, late evening light pouring through the big windows up in the rafters, making everything look hazy and soft. Tooru breathes in deeply and feels his nerves settle. 

“Hey,” Iwaizumi says from somewhere behind him. 

Tooru turns to find Iwaizumi raising an eyebrow at him, one hand on his hip and the other holding a volleyball. He looks like the Iwaizumi that Tooru knows now, his shoulders broader than the last time they were at Seijoh and his skin sun-kissed from his new, sunshine-filled home in California, but he’s got the sleeves of his t-shirt rolled up like he always used to on hot days in the summer and they’re both dressed in the familiar mint blue of a team neither of them have played on in years. 

“We doing this or not?” he asks. 

Tooru nods, relishes in the pleased, crooked smile that brings to Iwaizumi’s face. Iwaizumi tosses the ball in the air, a high, lazy arc for Tooru to set the ball back to him, and when Iwaizumi spikes it, Tooru can almost feel the power in it all the way down to his bones as the ball slams down on the other side of the court. Iwaizumi laughs as he lands, eyes shining, and turns to walk back to the end of the court. As Iwaizumi passes him, Tooru feels a sudden rush of anxiety sweep through his chest, and his hand shoots out to catch Iwaizumi’s wrist. 

“Wait,” Tooru says, though his voice comes out sounding muffled, like he’s speaking through water. “Don’t leave me.”

Iwaizumi looks at him, eyebrows furrowed but mouth still pulled up into a warm smile. “What are you talking about?” he says, and gently tugs his wrist free. 

The double doors to the gym swing open with a loud _bang_ as Iwaizumi pushes through without looking back, letting in a wash of bright light. Tooru tries to chase after him but finds that his feet are too heavy to let him catch up, and by the time Tooru reaches the doors, Iwaizumi is long gone. He pushes them open anyways, and as he steps through, he finds himself in the living room of his apartment in San Juan. Coffee percolates quietly on the kitchen counter, and the windows are all thrown wide open, the breeze from outside making his curtains billow out dramatically and even though it should be the middle of winter, it feels balmy and warm. The entire place is quiet—no rumble of traffic from the street below or the faint strains of his upstairs neighbor singing as she does chores or birds chirping in hopes of an early spring. Tooru’s bare feet sink silently into the soft carpet as he walks through his apartment to his bedroom, knowing, somehow, that what he’s looking for is there. 

Tooru hesitates at the threshold to his own room, hand hovering over the doorknob for a long moment before he nudges the door open like he’s scared something will pop out to startle him. But it’s just Iwaizumi, sitting cross-legged in the middle of Tooru’s bed, smiling expectantly like he’s been waiting for a long time. 

“So,” Iwaizumi says. “We doing this or not?”

Tooru blinks. “I—what? I don’t know,” he says.

Iwaizumi lets out a long breath and pushes himself off the bed. “That’s too bad,” he says, walking slowly across the room to Tooru. His feet are bare, too, like this is a place he’s made himself comfortable, and he’s wearing that ridiculous t-shirt he got when they were fourteen at a novelty shop that Tooru always pretended he didn’t like. _Never say die_ , his shirt proclaims, and Tooru thinks, _how foolish_. 

“What are you doing here?” Tooru asks as Iwaizumi nears him, because even in the liminal space of his dreams, there’s something jarring about the whole scene. 

Iwaizumi frowns like he can’t understand what Tooru is asking him. “What do you mean?” Iwaizumi says. “You wanted me to be here.”

“But you can’t,” Tooru says, and doesn’t know what he means, only that there’s this impending sense of doom that grows heavier with each step Iwaizumi takes towards him 

Iwaizumi stands before him and smiles, something all at once joyful and sad. He’s close enough now that Tooru can see the tiny scar Iwaizumi has running through his left eyebrow from the summer they learned how to ride bikes. Tooru wants to reach out to run his fingers along all the little lines on Iwaizumi’s face that he knows so well, but his hands remain stiff by his sides. 

“That’s too bad,” Iwaizumi says again, lightly, almost teasing. He holds Tooru’s gaze for a moment longer before turning and walking away.

“Wait!” Tooru calls out. They’re in the Sendai International Airport suddenly, uncharacteristically empty save for them, and Tooru’s feet are still bare, the floor cold to the touch. “Stop!”

Iwaizumi laughs, the sound bouncing off the high ceilings and all the metal and glass around them. He’s got a bag slung over his shoulder, and Tooru recognizes it as his old school bag from high school, Godzilla patch on the side and a colorful keychain that Tooru won for him at a festival when they were kids hanging off the zipper. He turns halfway around, and Tooru can see the blue stain from when he tossed an uncapped pen into Iwaizumi’s bag and it knocked around for weeks before anyone noticed the mark. 

“You first,” Iwaizumi says, challenging and steadfast as ever, but his voice still sounds bright, laughter still lingering at the edges. He turns again to leave, and this time, he doesn’t look back either, not even as Tooru calls out after him. 

( _Wait, wait, don’t leave me behind! I can’t do it alone!_ )  
  


* * *

  
“Just pick a movie,” Iwaizumi says. “It doesn’t matter.”

A handful of popcorn comes flying in Tooru’s direction, a kernel hitting him right on the nose. Tooru yelps and turns to glare at Iwaizumi, who’s got his eyebrows furrowed into some attempt at annoyance that doesn’t quite land. Tooru’s in Iwaizumi’s living room, pawing through his family’s enormous stash of DVD’s, Iwaizumi’s parents either too stubborn or too nostalgic to be rid of them for something easier, and he’s trying not to think about the last time they did this, back in high school when Iwaizumi’s parents went out on Fridays for date night. 

“Doesn’t matter?” Tooru gasps indignantly. Sometimes, without even thinking about it, he opens his mouth and it’s like he’s ten years old again, particular and willful and spoiled rotten by a best friend who gave him the entire world every day like it couldn’t be any other way. “Movie night is very serious business. You can’t rush this process.”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes, but Tooru thinks he can see an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

“There’s not even going to be any popcorn left by the time we start watching,” Iwaizumi says, shoving another handful of it in his mouth for emphasis. 

Tooru huffs and turns back to the box in front of him. It’s filled with movies that chronicle the span of their entire lives, beginning with _The Lion King_ from the year they were born and ending with the last movie they ever watched together, _Pacific Rim_ streamed illegally over a shitty Skype connection when they were nineteen in the few hours they managed to make their lives overlap from opposite ends of the world. Tooru remembers being cranky at having to get up early to make it work, even though between the two of them he’s always been more of an early riser, and he remembers very little else, and in the years that have passed, he hasn’t quite been able to bring himself to watch it again. He ends up picking something deliberately neutral, something animated and sweet from somewhere in the shuffle of their childhood, something that doesn’t have too many strings attached to it, and if Iwaizumi notices the careful sidestep, he doesn’t point it out. 

Tooru goes to put the movie on and turn the lights off, leaving the living room in sharp shapes and harsh shadows cast by the flickering light of the TV. A warm glow emanates from the kitchen off to one side of the room, catching a little on Iwaizumi’s messy hair. There’s this half a second as Tooru turns to join Iwaizumi on the couch where he feels suddenly paralyzed, unsure of what to do. He knows what he would’ve done, all those years ago, before things got warped and complicated, knows that the instinct is still there like so many other things. He knows that he probably shouldn’t anymore, that there are lines that have been drawn that only came to exist _after_ , that he’s probably already pushing it a little every day, bothering Iwaizumi to hang out with him, texting him on a whim without looking at the time, the little touches and the playful teasing that always slip out before he can stop. But he supposes, in the end, he’s always been a little more selfish than was ever any good for him. 

Tooru wanders back over the couch to sprawl across it, long legs dangling off the end, settling his head comfortably in Iwaizumi’s lap. He doesn’t miss the way it makes Iwaizumi jump, just a little, but at least Iwaizumi doesn’t push him away, opting to glare down at him instead. Iwaizumi puts the bowl of popcorn down on Tooru’s face, smushing his nose, and Tooru laughs, flings his arms out to swat the bowl away. He lets Iwaizumi place the bowl on his chest instead. 

“Comfortable?” Iwaizumi says, raising an eyebrow at him, and Tooru beams. It earns him an eye-roll that he’s hoping is mostly fond. 

The movie plays in Tooru’s peripheral vision, vague flashes of images he doesn’t really see as he looks up at Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi sits with one elbow resting on the back of the couch, propping his head up in his palm, and when he smiles a little at a joke, his eyes crinkle just so at the corners. Tooru feels a soft ache somewhere in his chest, like an echo of something he thought he’d long forgotten. 

Tooru dips his hand into the popcorn bowl and then reaches out to shove it in Iwaizumi’s face, nudging a couple kernels of popcorn against Iwaizumi’s lips until Iwaizumi jerks back and looks down at him. Tooru isn’t sure, really, why he does it, like so many of the things he used to do—stealing bites out of Iwaizumi’s bento at lunch when he wasn’t looking, pretending like he’d forgotten to bring his wallet when he wanted strawberry milk from the vending machines, needling, needling, needling, always—but the frown on Iwaizumi’s face looks like it’s caught halfway to being amused, and Tooru grins. Iwaizumi rolls his eyes again and shakes his head at Tooru but he opens his mouth and lets Tooru feed him anyways. 

“Watch the damn movie,” Iwaizumi says softly, his voice a low rumble through his chest. 

Tooru’s grateful for the cover of darkness around them, because he suddenly feels very warm, and even as he turns to properly watch the movie, he can feel Iwaizumi’s eyes on him for a long moment. It’s almost a relief when Iwaizumi looks away, because Tooru finally feels like he can breathe properly again, and he wonders, a little, how he did it the first time, be so painfully in love and so inescapably aware of all the things he can’t have. And he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even move, but Iwaizumi must hear his racing thoughts anyways, because a moment later, Tooru feels Iwaizumi’s fingers running through his hair, toying a little absently with it, an old habit from those nights when they were kids and Tooru had been too restless and on edge to get any sleep. His hand is steady and soft and soothing, and Tooru closes his eyes and feels his whole body hurt. 

He wonders, as the cheerful movie soundtrack blares out across the room, why he thought this would be a good idea, why he thought he could do it. Because Iwaizumi’s got him right in the palm of his hand all over again, and Tooru’s finding that it’s still a very short path between the careful way Iwaizumi handles him, gentle despite all his rough edges, and the way Tooru’s heart screams at him when Iwaizumi touches him, all the little glancing, accidental brushes and the deliberate kindnesses. Tooru has often wondered what you’re supposed to do with it, all the love left over from things that end too soon, all the ways he’s learned to give it, and he’s found that he never really has a satisfying answer to it.  
  


* * *

  
Tooru thinks a lot, in his quieter moments, about what Iwaizumi said to him before Tooru kissed him for the first time. It was the summer they turned eighteen and he was up late at Iwaizumi’s house pretending to study for the final exams that were just around the corner when in reality, Tooru had spent the better part of the last hour staring at the way Iwaizumi’s brow furrowed as he tried to figure something out, the way he mouthed the words he was reading to himself as if that would help him find the solution. Tooru had found himself thinking, not for the first time, that Iwaizumi was quite possibly the most beautiful person he’d ever met, strong jaw and broad shoulders and flecks of gold and green in his brown eyes, and he’d leaned across the table on impulse like some unseen force was reeling him in. Tooru remembers that Iwaizumi had looked startled but not surprised, and he’d stared at Tooru for a long moment with wide eyes before ducking his chin and looking away. 

“There are some things you can’t come back from, you know,” Iwaizumi had said softly. 

Tooru remembers smiling and saying something to the effect of, “I hope so” and relishing in the way Iwaizumi’s cheeks flushed. 

Tooru remembers kissing him and feeling like he could conquer the world. 

Tooru hadn’t really thought anything of it then, had almost forgotten all about it many months later, because he’d been certain that wherever he was headed with Iwaizumi, it would be a one-way trip, but a year after the fact, when they had their first big fight after Tooru moved away, Iwaizumi had said it again, and this time, it sat like glass in his lungs, like a bad omen instead of a promise. Tooru remembers being so young and so afraid and having all these things on the tip of his tongue, all his hurt and worry coming out in the wrong ways, and he remembers Iwaizumi shouting at him, sharp in a way that he’d never been with Tooru growing up, Iwaizumi who’d always been the loudest person in Tooru’s entire world but never cruel, never spiteful. 

“Oikawa!” Iwaizumi had shouted, and when Tooru still wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise, “Please. _Tooru_ ” and that had shut him up fairly quickly. 

Tooru had sat with his heart in his throat, staring wide-eyed at the slightly blurry image of Iwaizumi flickering across his laptop screen. 

“Please, just stop,” Iwaizumi had said, voice wobbling ever so slightly in a way that made Tooru feel sick. “If we keep going like this, one of us is going to say something we regret. There are some things you can’t take back.”

It was the first time Tooru had gone more than twelve hours without speaking to Iwaizumi, and by the time Iwaizumi called him again, a couple days later, there had been something about it all that felt brittle in a way Tooru had never noticed before. Tooru remembers replaying the fight over and over and over again in his head, trying to figure out what he said that gave him the feeling, but all he could think of was that maybe he’d finally done it. Maybe he’d finally pushed too hard at something he realized he never wanted to break. Tooru likes to think, looking back at it now, that he’d meant to apologize, even though he knows the type of person he was back then, small and selfish and naïve enough to think that just because he wanted something badly enough, he could make it happen through sheer willpower alone. 

“Aren’t you tired of this?” Iwaizumi had asked him once, eyes red-rimmed and cheeks flushed from tears, from a kind of frustration Tooru could never seem to take away no matter how hard he tried. “Not everything is a game you have to win, you know.”

Tooru had felt a sharp pang in his chest and had spluttered, desperate and defensive and almost certainly just proving the point even further, “I’m not—I don’t—”

“I’m scared, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi had said, so quiet Tooru almost missed it, except that in that moment Iwaizumi had looked so unlike the fierce, fearless boy Tooru grew up loving that it made Tooru’s blood run cold. “There are some lines you can’t uncross, and I… I don’t want to end up resenting you. I don’t know how much more I can take.”

Maybe, Tooru thinks, that had been the beginning of the end, when Iwaizumi had said that. Maybe putting words to the fear that had lived in Tooru’s chest since first touching down in San Juan had been the thing that did it. Or maybe in reality, Tooru had been looking for an excuse, for an out, because he doesn’t remember the two of them being the kind of thing that crumbles so easily, because maybe he needed something to point to when he ran away. 

( _See? You too. It wasn’t just me. It wasn’t all my fault. Right?_ )  
  


* * *

  
A mid-summer rainstorm catches Tooru by surprise when he’s out on a run one day about halfway through his month-long stint at home, and before he can even think about looking for shelter, he’s drenched to the bone. He frowns up at the sky, which had been so deceptively clear and blue not an hour ago, and then his frown turns into a scowl when he pats his pockets and realizes he’s forgotten his keys. The door to his house is locked and his parents had headed out to go get groceries and take care of other little errands just before he’s left for his run, and Tooru’s pretty sure they won’t be back again for at least another half an hour. He sighs. It feels a little like the universe likes to conspire against him sometimes, he thinks. 

A bit of wandering finds him at Iwaizumi’s doorstep just down the street, ducking under the overhang above the front door to get out of the downpour at least, even if it won’t do anything to keep him dry. Little rivulets of water drip down the back of his neck, making him shiver as he debates about what to do. On one hand, there’s a light on in the house somewhere and Tooru can hear the faint strains of soft indie music over the white noise of heavy rain that means that Iwaizumi is home, alone probably. On the other hand, more and more lately, Tooru’s been finding himself falling back into old patterns, bad habits like leaning too much on Iwaizumi, like wanting selfishly to monopolize all of his free time, like hanging on every word, trying and trying and trying until he gets Iwaizumi to laugh, full-bellied and bright. In many ways, Tooru thinks, it’s probably not good for him, not good for his heart to let himself be this indulgent, but the butterflies that have lived in his stomach for almost half his life have stubbornly refused to leave, even after all this time apart, and Tooru thinks that there’s a version of the world where not having even this could be worse. 

Tooru knocks on Iwaizumi’s door before he can talk himself out of it. If Iwaizumi asks, Tooru thinks, he can always say he’s afraid of catching a cold, and it’ll only be half a lie. When the door opens a moment later, Tooru puts on his most brilliant smile and hopes that Iwaizumi doesn’t push too hard. 

The confused furrow in Iwaizumi’s brow when he opens the door quickly morphs into something like concern. “Oikawa,” he says. “What the hell.”

Tooru rocks back on his heels a little. “Would you believe me if I said I got locked out of my house?” he asks sweetly. 

Iwaizumi snorts. “Should I?” he shoots back, but it sounds like a joke. 

Tooru shrugs. “You gonna let me in?” he asks, letting a little bit of a whine sneak into his voice. “I’m going to freeze to death out here.”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “Quit being so dramatic,” he says, but even as he speaks, he’s already stepping back to make room for Tooru. “It’s not even that cold.”

Tooru grins as he follows Iwaizumi inside, and he’s greeted by a warm house and Iwaizumi’s dog barreling at him full force. Tooru laughs as Kuma tackles him, falling flat on his ass as he gets knocked over by seventy-five pounds of dog. Iwaizumi got Kuma when they were in middle school, and Tooru remembers him begging and pleading with his parents to please, please let him have a dog. Kuma’s old now but no less friendly as he licks at Tooru’s face and nudges his head into Tooru’s palm so Tooru can scratch him behind the ears, and Tooru has a moment to spare to wonder at the fact that Kuma still remembers him so well after so long. 

“Hey,” Iwaizumi says, poking his head into the foyer from around the corner. His tone is firm but his eyes are soft and fond as he watches Tooru pet Kuma. “Come and dry off. It sort of defeats the point of coming in if you’re just going to catch a cold anyways.”

“Aww,” Tooru coos as he pushes himself back up again. “Are you worried about me?”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes as he disappears from sight again. “ _No_ ,” he says emphatically. “But you’re insufferable when you’re sick.”

Tooru laughs, even though it leaves a heavy feeling in his stomach, and does his best not to track too much water into Iwaizumi’s house, which in the end turns out to be easier said than done, but Iwaizumi doesn’t comment on the little puddles Tooru leaves all the way up the stairs to the second floor. Instead, he tosses Tooru a towel and waves Tooru towards his room to get changed into something dry before grabbing another towel to mop up the mess Tooru’s left behind. Tooru tries not to think too much about the cosmic meaning of it all. 

Iwaizumi’s room when Tooru walks in is all at once familiar and foreign. Posters from their childhood still hang on Iwaizumi’s walls—movies Iwaizumi used to love, bands he used to listen to, pages ripped out of magazines of his favorite volleyball players—and the bed is neatly made and everything is tucked away just so. He remembers thinking when they were fourteen that he’d never met another middle schooler who kept his room so tidy, but then again, he’d never met anyone who’d had a mother like Iwaizumi’s. The thought brings a soft smile to Tooru’s face as he rifles around in Iwaizumi’s dresser for something to wear. He ends up pulling out a pair of shorts and a t-shirt he could’ve sworn was his to begin with and wonders a little as he peels off his soaked clothing and tosses it all in a waterlogged pile in Iwaizumi’s bathtub how many of the things in Iwaizumi’s room went untouched after he moved out for college. Did he sort through his entire life, Tooru wonders, trying to untangle what was his own from what was Tooru’s, or did he simply shut it all away at the back of a drawer somewhere without looking back? Tooru isn’t sure which version of the world he’d prefer to believe in. 

“Hey.”

Tooru turns at the sound of the soft voice and finds Iwaizumi standing in the doorway to the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe. His arms are crossed, but there’s a slight pinch in his brow and an odd set to his mouth. 

“You good?” Iwaizumi asks. 

Tooru smiles and nods, even as he feels droplets of water sliding down the back of his neck from his hair. Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow at him.

“You gonna make me do this?” he says, voice caught somewhere between exasperation and concern. It’s a tone Iwaizumi used a lot, growing up, and Tooru doesn’t like making Iwaizumi worry, but the sound of it feels like home anyways. “Really? How old are you?”

“Still not old enough,” Tooru says, singsong. 

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “Clearly,” he says, but takes half a step forward and reaches up to take the towel Tooru has draped across his shoulders. 

Iwaizumi carefully towel-dries Tooru’s hair, and Tooru feels a sharp tug in his chest. He remembers being six and falling into the deep end of the pool and Iwaizumi pulling him out and wrapping a towel around him and hugging him until he smiled again. He remembers being twelve and coming inside for watermelon on a hot summer day after a water balloon fight and Iwaizumi yelling at him for stealing his towel but still patting Tooru’s hair dry anyways. He remembers being eighteen and crawling into Iwaizumi’s bed after a bath and Iwaizumi laughing when Tooru’s hair dripped water in his face and refusing to kiss him until he stopped getting water everywhere. Iwaizumi had helped him then, too, and all the times before, and Tooru doesn’t know if he’d be able to count to a number high enough to capture the number of times it’s struck him—how unbelievably gentle Iwaizumi is when he feels safe enough to be, how warm and soothing his touch is, grounding even as the world spins on around them. Tooru’s pretty sure he fell in love with Iwaizumi in a moment just like this, so quiet and unassuming, the little moments that Tooru’s always surprised to find stick with him even after all this time. 

_I’m still in love with you_ , Tooru thinks, and wonders what Iwaizumi would say to him if he told him. 

Iwaizumi lets out a small sigh. “What am I going to do with you?” he says, sounding a little tired but fond, and oh so beautiful, that soft, sweet smile that was always Tooru’s favorite pulling at the corners of his mouth.

_I will always be in love with you_ , Tooru thinks, and knows that there’s nothing to be done about it. 

Iwaizumi eases the towel down from Tooru’s head, but there’s a moment where his hands linger, a moment where Tooru looks at Iwaizumi and sees everything he’s missed out on, everything he left behind by being too selfish, too cowardly, too afraid to walk in blind and never come out. The way Iwaizumi looks at him now is the way that Tooru remembers from back then, this boy who at one point might’ve given Tooru the entire universe, if that’s what he asked for, and there’s a part of Tooru that wants to wake up and realize that the past five years have been some kind of strange fever dream, that Iwaizumi could still be his, that he didn’t completely fuck up one of the best things to ever happen to him.

Tooru remembers learning once, back in high school, about the law of universal gravitation and the way that two objects, as they draw nearer and nearer, exert exponentially more and more force on each other, like at some point, it’s all but an inevitability that they’ll collide. He’d been distracted in class that day and doesn’t remember much of the lesson, and this is an imperfect test, but Tooru’s starting to think that maybe he should’ve paid more attention. Because he’s kissing Iwaizumi before he really realizes what’s happening, and he doesn’t know who leaned in first, but what he does know is that he never wants it to end. What he does know is that Iwaizumi’s got his hands fisted in Tooru’s shirt and his body is warm against Tooru’s rain-chilled skin and he’s kissing Tooru like he’s trying to fit five years of feeling into this moment. Tooru can feel the same desperation he has running under his own skin in the way Iwaizumi kisses him, insistent and untamed and unrelenting. Iwaizumi’s pressed right up against him, hip to chest, and still Tooru wants more, still too greedy, too needy, slipping his hands under the hem of Iwaizumi’s shirt to run his fingertips along Iwaizumi’s skin, mapping it all out again, what used to be such familiar territory.

Tooru knows he’s made a mistake as soon as he feels Iwaizumi’s spine stiffen and Iwaizumi’s hands flatten on his chest and push, hard. They’re both breathing hard as Iwaizumi stumbles back a couple steps, and if things were a little different, Tooru might’ve reveled in the flush high on Iwaizumi’s cheekbones, in the soft pout of his lips. But Iwaizumi’s looking at him like he’s seen a ghost, eyes wide and almost terrified, hands shaking a little at his sides, and Tooru gasps, clapping a hand over his mouth, his heart screaming in his chest. 

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck._

There’s a version of the world where it may not have been such a big deal, this kind of backsliding into bad habits, except that Tooru still remembers so distinctly the bitterness their breakup had left behind, except that he still remembers how awful and messy and crushing it had felt. It wasn’t an amicable thing, like you hear so much about when adults talk about relationships ending. It was twisted and sharp and ragged around the edges, and Tooru’s never figured out how to gather up all the frayed ends still flapping in the wind. 

For a long moment, neither of them says anything, locked in a stalemate neither of them dares to break. And then Iwaizumi blinks, and Tooru hears the words tumble out of his own mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Tooru says, tripping a little over the syllables in his haste to get the words out. “I’m sorry, I don’t—That wasn’t—I just—”

He doesn’t know what to say, because he can’t quite explain it himself, except that he is and will always be so desperately in love with Iwaizumi that this ache that’s made a home in his chest will never leave, that he wants Iwaizumi, still, with every fiber of his being, even though he knows, he _knows_ this isn’t something he’s allowed to have. Tooru sputters helplessly, feeling a kind of sob hitch in his throat, pricks at the corners of his eyes that tell him tears are threatening to fall. 

“I think you should go,” Iwaizumi says finally, after Tooru talks himself in nonsensical circles for a long minute. 

“But—” Tooru starts, panicked and all but choking on his words.

“Please,” Iwaizumi says, and his voice is low and soft, but even so, Tooru can hear the way it wavers, just a bit. “Go.”

Tooru feels like he’s been tossed into a vacuum, like all the air has been sucked out of his lungs. “I’m sorry,” he pleads, voice cracking, but Iwaizumi’s not meeting his eyes anymore. 

Tooru’s breathing is shaky now, and he knows it won’t be much longer until he starts crying in earnest. He looks back over his shoulder when he reaches the threshold of Iwaizumi’s room, and when he sees the hunch in Iwaizumi’s shoulders, like he’s caving in on himself, trying to protect his heart in his chest, Tooru almost runs back over to throw himself on the ground and beg for forgiveness. 

( _I know I overstepped_ , he wants to say. _I know I made things hard for you. I know I made it hard to trust me. I didn’t mean to. I love you. I’m sorry. I love you. I love you._ )

Instead, what Tooru says is, “Will you text me or something?”

And it’s so, so selfish, and he knows he’s being selfish, but he has this feeling in the pit of his stomach that if he walks out that door without saying something, _anything_ , he’ll never be able to come back, and that scares him more. Tooru can see the gears turning in Iwaizumi’s head, sees the moment of hesitation, but then Iwaizumi nods, once, and Tooru thinks that he probably really doesn’t deserve someone like Iwaizumi after all, in the end. 

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says, and he’s turned away from Tooru, but Tooru doesn’t have to see his face to know that his eyes are glassy and his cheeks are flushing like he’s doing everything he can to hold back on the sobs in his chest. “Yeah, okay.”

Tooru bites down on the inside of his cheek, trying to tamp down on the impulse to ask for more and more and more, to ask just one more time for Iwaizumi to wait for him. He turns and leaves instead, and when he lets the door swing shut behind him, Tooru leans back against the cool wood and lets out a long, shuddering breath. There’s a sticker that’s now at hip level of Godzilla on Iwaizumi’s door that Tooru remembers winning for him at an arcade. Tooru places his hand over it and closes his eyes, and through the door, he thinks he can hear Iwaizumi crying.  
  


* * *

  
The next day, Tooru sits in his sister’s kitchen shelling fresh peas and trying to ignore the gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He’s not really hungry, but when he’d shown up at her doorstep earlier in the day unannounced without having slept much and just barely put together enough to be seen in public, she’d taken one look at him and insisted that he stay for dinner. He didn’t really offer any explanation and she hadn’t asked, putting him to work instead to help her prep, but the question looms over them anyways, waiting. 

“Are you okay?” 

Tooru knows that she’s just asking it as an opening, trying to pry just a tiny crack in the locked doors he keeps around his heart, but it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth anyways. _Obviously not_ , he wants to snap, but he finds that he’s too tired even for that. She sighs at his silence and sets the knife she’s using to chop some onions aside, sitting down next to him at the kitchen table and placing a hand over his wrist. 

“Did something happen?” Miyu asks, soft in a way Tooru never got good at. “I thought things were getting better.”

Tooru barks out a laugh that sounds forced and off-key even to his own ears. A couple peas tumble out of his shaking hands onto the smooth wood of the table and fall out of focus as Tooru’s eyes fill with tears. Miyu’s grip on his wrist tightens, just a tick. 

“You know,” Tooru says, voice wobbling perilously, “I knew I was a shitty friend and a shitty boyfriend, but it turns out I’m an even shittier ex.”

Miyu clicks her tongue quietly, reaching up to run a hand through his hair, soothing like she used to when he was young and small and would wake up with nightmares in the middle of the night. Tooru wishes that it could still be so easy to make the nightmares go away.

“I really fucked it up this time,” Tooru says quietly, not trusting himself to speak any louder. “He’s going to hate me forever.”

Miyu doesn’t ask him what he means by that, what he did, what they did to each other. She never has, all of the details she knows voluntarily shared by Tooru sobbing over the phone to her at odd hours of the night. It’s unimportant, she’d always said, what exactly happened, who did what, who said what, who started it. It’s all just details. What matters is what you carry with you, after. 

“He’s never going to trust me again,” he says, shaking his head. His tears fall in dark splotches on the tabletop. “I wouldn’t trust me.”

Miyu breathes out a soft sigh. 

“Tooru,” she says quietly, clasping her hands over his. “You really shouldn’t get in the habit of closing doors that don’t need to be closed.” 

She squeezes his hands gently in her own. 

“It’s a part of growing up,” she says. “You hurt people. They hurt you. You don’t remember, because you were too young, but I fucked up my fair share of relationships too. No way around it. But it’s how you learn, how you grow. And all you can do is acknowledge what you did and try to do better next time.”

Tooru laughs weakly, sniffling a little. His eyes feel puffy. 

“How many chances does a person get until there’s no next time?” he asks, brittle and terrified in a way he hasn’t felt since that first year after he moved away. “I’m pretty sure I’ve used up all of mine.”

Miyu smiles at him like he’s maybe a little dense, a little sad, and she gets up to pull him into a hug, dropping a kiss on the top of his head. If he stood up, he’d be so much taller than her now, but he’s never felt smaller. 

She doesn’t tell him that things will be okay. She doesn’t promise that everything has its own way of working out, in the end. Miyu isn’t the type of person to live with her head in the clouds, entertaining notions she has no way of knowing are true or not. Instead, what she says is: 

“You don’t know that.”

It’s a simple truth, but the kind that bears repeating every now and again. Tooru wishes he could be the type of person to believe in it so easily.  
  


* * *

  
Tooru doesn’t hear from Iwaizumi for several days. Tooru passes Iwaizumi’s house sometimes when he goes out on runs or to the store to pick up groceries for his mother or to pick Takeru up from volleyball practice one time, pretending like he isn’t taking the long way through the neighborhood just to get a glimpse of Iwaizumi. Sometimes, when he walks by, the lights are on, and sometimes, Tooru can see Iwaizumi inside, pacing or talking on the phone with a pinch in his brow or lying on the couch with his dog, staring into space. Tooru passes by and tries not to think about it and then thinks about it some more. 

“You should talk to him,” Matsukawa says to Tooru one day when he muddles through explaining what’s happened in a desperate attempt to find something to salvage from all of this. “You’re both way too stubborn for your own good. You don’t want this stalemate to go on forever. Better to rip off the Band-Aid.”

“Give him space,” Hanamaki says on another day, shaking his head for emphasis as Tooru panics over whether or not Iwaizumi will leave for California without so much as another word. “He’s not cruel. If he said he’d call you, he will. You know that.”

Tooru turns the memory of that kiss over and over and over again in his mind, wondering if it’s possible for both Matsukawa and Hanamaki to be right at the same time. Because there’s a part of him that wants to knock down Iwaizumi’s door and kick and scream until he has answers, because anything, he thinks, would be better than this suffocating uncertainty. But there’s also a part of him that still wants to believe, so desperately, that Iwaizumi will come to him first, that Iwaizumi won’t think of him as completely irredeemable. Tooru wants answers and he wants Iwaizumi to not hate him and he wants to prove that he’s learned, that he’s better at this now, at being a good friend, at being a good person. He wants to cry at odd intervals—when he’s brushing his teeth in the morning and catches a glimpse of his own reflection, when he hears a jingle on TV for the chips they used to squabble over as kids, when he’s lacing up his shoes for a run— and he wants to scream, and he wants and he wants and he wants. It leaves him with his chest hurting like he’s cracked a rib, leaves him waking up in the middle of the night sometimes, reaching out for someone he’s petrified will slip out of reach again. It leaves him both exhausted and restless, and multiple times, Tooru almost lets himself march over to Iwaizumi’s house because he’s less and less sure that he’ll get any kind of answer he’s hoping for if he just sits around and waits. And each time, he tamps down on the impulse, trying and trying and trying to remember everything he’s learned about being a more patient person in the past few years.  
  


* * *

  
Tooru runs a lot instead. He runs for miles and miles every day, till his lungs are screaming and he thinks his legs might give out. It’s probably not good for him, he knows, because overworking never gave him anything but crushed dreams and a bum knee, but he finds that he can’t stop. Because if he’s running, he doesn’t have to think, and if he doesn’t have to think, then he can pretend for a little while longer that this isn’t real, that he didn’t just ruin every chance he ever had at piecing back together what’s maybe the most important relationship he’s ever had. He runs and he runs and he runs, because at least it’s better than just waiting around, because at least he can feel like he’s getting somewhere, if only temporarily. It’s a poor fix for a broken heart, but at this point it’s all he’s got, and he’s never been very good at letting go. 

Tooru slows to a walk early one morning as he’s cutting through the park a few blocks away from his house, the park that he and Iwaizumi would play in as kids, catching cicadas and watching the stars wheel overhead in the summertime. There’s a swing set that used to make him feel like he could launch himself way up into the night sky but now seems so small and flimsy. He wonders how many other things will shrink and grow in his field of vision before he feels like the world’s balanced itself out again. 

Tooru drops down onto one of the swings, swaying lightly back and forth. His knee is starting to ache, and he knows he has to stop this, knows that if he’s not careful, he’ll end up breaking more things beyond repair. He rests his elbows on his thighs and lets his head drop, trying to catch his breath, watching as the grass below his feet swims in and out of focus. He feels tired all the way down to his bones in a way he can’t remember feeling in years, not since this all fell apart, the first time. He wonders a little how he got through it back then, being so young and naïve, so new to the ways that the world can take and take and take until there’s nothing left. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to get to a place where he feels like he’s on the other side of it all again. 

Tooru feels more than sees when Iwaizumi walks up and sits in the swing next to him, and he almost doesn’t dare to look up. He sits, staring down at the crushed grass below his feet, heart in his throat, and can’t breathe. It feels like a lifetime before Iwaizumi speaks. 

“Hey,” Iwaizumi says, voice low and careful. 

Tooru chances a peek at Iwaizumi out of the corner of his eye and feels his chest contract at the weary lines he can see on Iwaizumi’s face, the hard set to his brow, the clench in his jaw like he’s bracing himself for something. 

Tooru lets out a breath in a _whoosh_. 

“Hey,” he says, feeling small. 

Iwaizumi looks straight ahead instead of at Tooru, but Tooru thinks it still looks like he’s as bone-crushingly tired as Tooru feels, like he feels like he’s on his last limb too. Maybe, Tooru thinks, one way or another, this will be that closure everyone talks about when you get your heart broken. Maybe, even if he gets his heart shattered all over again, it’ll finally feel like he’s gotten to the end of the rope. Maybe then, he thinks, the letting go will get easier. 

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, and his voice sounds rough in his throat, like he hasn’t gotten a moment’s rest since they last spoke, like he’s been shouting and shouting and shouting himself hoarse like when they were nineteen and still trying to make things work despite the distance. Iwaizumi closes his eyes and takes a deep, shaky breath, and then says, so quietly that Tooru almost misses it, “I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can be friends with you.”

Tooru’s breath catches in his throat and his eyes go wide, his ears ringing loudly in the ensuing silence. He wonders if it’s possible that the entire world freezes for just a moment, wonders if it’s possible to make it. 

“Because you know, it turns out I was right, I think,” Iwaizumi continues, slowly like he’s practiced it, over and over and over. “There are some lines you can’t uncross, and I think there’s a part of me that’s always going to love you, but this—” he gestures vaguely into the space between them “—is unsustainable. We can’t just keep going on like nothing ever happened. It’s just… there’s too much history. You don’t just forget about that so easily.”

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru breathes softly, because he feels a little like he’s suffocating a little more with each word, with each deliberate step of distance Iwaizumi’s laying out between them, but the stupid, selfish, sappy part of him thinks _but he loves me_ , thinks _but he will always love me_ , thinks _why can’t that be enough?_

“And, look, it’s not like anything’s really changed in the past few years,” Iwaizumi says, and Tooru thinks it almost sounds like he’s trying to convince himself of it. “We still live nowhere near each other. We have no idea when we’ll actually be able to be together. And obviously, the whole long-distance thing doesn’t work, and I just… I can’t go through that again.”

Tooru blinks, slowly, feeling an odd kind of panicked anger rising in his chest, slowly replacing the sharp ache that’s made its home there for the past handful of days. 

“You don’t know that it’ll be that way again,” Tooru says, still quiet, though he can feel a kind of wildness starting to creep in on the edges of his voice. 

Iwaizumi whips his head around to stare at Tooru, eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. “What are you talking about?” he says, maybe a little harsher than he needs to be, but Tooru thinks that he sort of gets it, this instinct to lash out when cornered, to bite first when frightened. “We tried it. It didn’t work. What don’t I know?”

“It’s different now,” Tooru says, voice rising, and something about it makes Iwaizumi stand up and start pacing in frustration, shoving a hand through his hair as he shakes his head. 

“How?” Iwaizumi demands, turning on his heel to look at Tooru again, pinning him with a look that bores straight through to his soul. “Don’t tell me you’re planning to move back here or anything, because I know you aren’t. I’ve known since the day you left. It’s still the same. The same problems are still there. You can’t pretend like they’re not.”

“That’s not true,” Tooru insists, the feeling in his chest spreading out through his limbs to the tips of his fingers. It feels hot and restless, and Tooru grips the chains of the swing he’s still sitting on a little bit tighter. “How can you say that?”

Iwaizumi stares at him incredulously. “How can _you_ say _that_?” he asks, and Tooru notices for the first time a tiny tremor running through his voice. “The situation’s still the same. What could possibly have changed?”

“I have!” Tooru shouts, his voice ringing out, sharp and loud through the still morning air, and then the words catch in his throat. The ghost of the person he became in the year after he left home looms ominously over him. Slowly, Tooru unclenches his fists, lets the anger drain out of him, lets himself come back to himself.

Iwaizumi’s still looking at Tooru with wide eyes, but he’s quiet now and there’s something more brittle about it now, like he’s starting to see where all the cracks are. He stands very still, but his hands are still shaking. 

“It’s been a long time, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, thinking to himself that this is it, that he’s got to make this count, that if there were ever any chances he’s got left to cash in, it’s got to be here, now. “I know I didn’t make it easy, back then. I was so selfish and needy and I didn’t know how to handle it, any of it.” Tooru takes a breath that rattles through his chest, and he can feel the sob gathering at the base of his throat, but he presses on anyways. “I’d had to work so hard for so long for everything in my life, except you. It was always so easy, being with you. I never had to think about it. I could just turn around and trust that you’d be there. I was so spoiled. I’d never learned how to do the work, and I didn’t know if I could, and that terrified me. I was so scared of messing up and losing you that I think I just got stuck.” 

A few tears start to spill over onto Tooru’s cheeks and he wipes at them angrily. He can’t cry, not yet, because he still has things he has to say, things he has to atone for, and he doesn’t have the time to be choking on his words. 

“I want to believe that it wasn’t all for nothing,” Tooru says, voice low and tired now. He feels heavy, and he wants to go home to a place that can’t exist if he doesn’t get through this. “I want to believe that I’m a better person now. I want to believe that I’m less greedy now, that I can love you in the way that you deserve. I have to. Because I… I don’t want to do this without you.”

Tooru’s vision is starting to blur a little from the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, and Iwaizumi hasn’t moved since Tooru started talking, not quite, but he looks about as steady as Tooru feels, which is to say not at all. He feels like he’s teetering right on the edge of a great precipice and squeezes his eyes shut. Tooru rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, feeling weak and sad and small after trying to hold himself together for so long, since trying to be friends with Iwaizumi again, since touching down in Japan for the first time in years only to run head-first into him, since they broke up, all those years ago. Iwaizumi had said to Tooru once when they were sixteen that Tooru was so strong and headstrong that it scared him sometimes, and all Tooru can think when he remembers that is that he’s never quite felt like he’s lived up to that. 

Tooru’s shoulders start shaking as he cries, all of it, all the hurt and hope and heartbreak rushing forward in a sudden groundswell of emotion, and thinks to himself, _god, this is really it, isn’t it?_ Thinks, _how terrifying_. Thinks, _how freeing_. Tooru wants to think that he’ll be okay either way, that he’ll be able to make his peace with it somehow, if Iwaizumi ends up deciding that it still isn’t worth it anymore, and there’s a part of him that knows he probably will be, given enough time. He’s given it his all, he thinks, laid it all out finally, after so many years of dodging questions and running off at the slightest threat, and he’s learned that the best way to lose, because you have to, sometimes, is to lose like this, with his heart on his sleeve after pulling out every bit of _try_ that he can. He’ll be okay, he thinks, but he doesn’t want to have to be. 

Tooru feels Iwaizumi’s fingers thread through his hair first, a little hesitant, before one hand settles at the back of Tooru’s neck, and Tooru finds himself wrapped up in Iwaizumi’s arms, pressed into Iwaizumi’s chest, Iwaizumi’s chin resting gently on the top of his head. He can feel the way Iwaizumi’s shaking still, like he’s frightened of this whole thing too, but Tooru thinks to himself that they’ve always gotten through the scary things best together. Tooru lifts his head to look at Iwaizumi with wide eyes and finds Iwaizumi looking back at him, really looking, his bottom lip trembling a little but his eyes clear and sharp. Tooru feels another sob rise up in his throat and bites down on his tongue. 

“I want to believe that too,” Iwaizumi says quietly, finally, and Tooru feels something puncture in his chest. 

Tooru wraps his arms around Iwaizumi’s waist and buries his head in Iwaizumi’s chest. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs into the soft cotton of Iwaizumi’s shirt. “I’m so sorry. I put you through so much unnecessary bullshit. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The warmth of Iwaizumi’s strong, sure hands on his back is enough to make him start crying in earnest all over again, but then Tooru hears Iwaizumi say softly, “I’m sorry too.” 

Iwaizumi’s arms tighten around Tooru, just a bit. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says:

“When you left home, it felt like you were leaving me behind too. And I knew. I knew it wasn’t like that, but I just couldn’t stop getting in my own way about it. There’s a lot of things I probably shouldn’t have taken out on you. I’m sorry.”

Tooru jerks back and stares at Iwaizumi, dumbstruck and almost afraid to believe that this isn’t just a dream, heart in his throat. 

“You don’t—I mean, you still trust me, after everything?” Tooru asks. He thinks about being eighteen and lashing out with knives under his tongue because he hadn’t known how to handle being so afraid of something so important. He thinks about how he’d watched Iwaizumi’s heart break in slow motion for the better part of a year before they called it quits. He thinks about how he’d shattered any semblance of normalcy they’d been able to find again in the past couple weeks by blowing past any limits of fragile friendship with one impulsive choice. He’d been exaggerating, a little, when he’d said to his sister that even he wouldn’t trust himself anymore after all that, but not by much. 

Iwaizumi sighs softly and wipes at a few stray tears running down Tooru’s cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. He smiles, and this time it only looks a little bit sad. 

“Do you still love me?” he asks, and Tooru thinks for a moment he feels his heart stop in his chest. 

“Yes,” Tooru almost whispers. “Yes, always.”

Iwaizumi rests his forehead against Tooru’s. “Then yes,” he says, warmer now, more settled like there’s some nagging fear that’s suddenly been quieted. “We were never bad people, Oikawa. It wasn’t like that. It was just a shitty situation, and I don’t know. Maybe we were just too young to figure it out. But maybe we can now.”

Tooru leans into Iwaizumi’s touch. “You didn’t end up hating me?” he asks, a little unsteady still.

Iwaizumi smiles. “You didn’t really think that, did you?” he asks, his voice starting to pick up just a little of its usual playfulness again.

Tooru laughs, startled but pleased, feeling a warmth in his chest where that bone-deep ache used to be, and as Iwaizumi leans in to kiss him, Tooru thinks to himself that maybe he has a thing or two still to learn about faith.  
  


* * *

  
(“I broke my leg there,” Iwaizumi says on their way home that day, his hand in Tooru’s like an anchor grounding him to the earth. “We were eight, and I flew off the swings and landed funny.”

Tooru laughs. His eyes still feel red and raw, but his chest feels lighter than it has in weeks, months, maybe years. 

“You cried,” Tooru remembers. 

It had been an odd sight, Iwaizumi crying like that. Iwaizumi smiles a little at the memory too. 

“For some reason, you were crying too,” Iwaizumi says, voice fond. “But you still carried me all the way home.” 

Above them, the sun climbs high in the bright blue sky, warming Tooru’s cheeks against the memory of tears. He smiles and tips his head up, closing his eyes to catch the rays, the anxiety and pain from earlier in the morning feeling a world away. Iwaizumi stops suddenly, and Tooru opens his eyes again and turns at the sudden tug on his hand. Iwaizumi’s looking at him with a kind of wonder that Tooru can’t quite place, and Iwaizumi pulls him in by the hand to kiss him again, free hand coming up to rest at the back of Tooru’s neck, fingers curling into the soft waves of hair there. Iwaizumi kisses him, and it’s every bit as achingly sweet as Tooru remembers from the very first time. 

“I don’t know how I forgot that.”)

**Author's Note:**

> as I feel like usually happens, I'm pretty happy with like 90% of this fic but I don't love how it ends, so if u notice me tinkering with this in the coming days, just roll with it lmao 
> 
> thank you so very much for reading! comments/kudos are always SO appreciated!
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](http://youichi-kuramochi.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/kura_ryous) if you feel so inclined!


End file.
